


Something to Remember

by Josselin



Series: Something to Remember [1]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-18
Updated: 2003-10-18
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1518341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a Brian-sees-Ethan-cheating-and-will-he-tell-Justin-or-not-fic.  Sort of.  Maybe.</p><p>Also, it’s a Brian-buys-Justin-flowers-fic, but I promise it’s not as bad as you’re imagining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something to Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Premise vaguely stolen from [](http://cesperanza.livejournal.com/profile)[**cesperanza**](http://cesperanza.livejournal.com/)’s “The Thought that Counts”. Sort of. Maybe. Only not executed nearly as well. Plus, it’s way shorter.

On Wednesday, on a lunch break with a client who had a thing—much to Brian’s distaste—for classical music, Brian saw Justin’s little musician making out with a trumpet player in the men’s room. He felt a flash of…something, and told himself that it was smugness because he’d been right all along. No guys were really monogamous. Some of them were just honest about it. It was just like he’d told Mikey last year with David.

On Friday, eating breakfast at the diner, Brian read the headline: “Student Dies in Car Crash.” He saw the sympathetic bio of rising musician Ethan Gold, a picture of Ethan’s grieving cousin Justin, and again he felt a flash of something, but this time he didn’t know what to tell himself it was, and he ordered more coffee.

* * *

Brian went to the burial, showing up late, of course. He stood next to Michael, who was there with Ben, Deb, Vic, Ted and Emmett, and the munchers. They were all here, not for the stupid musician, but because Justin was still family.

Justin’s family was there, too, his mother and sister flanking him—three blond heads in the sun, and one darker head, since Daphne was comfortingly at Justin’s elbow. Craig Taylor was notably absent from that little band, but that was for the best, really.

Brian thought maybe it should be raining.

* * *

Vance had wanted him to go to a big fundraising conference to help round up new clients, but Brian ditched out—he’d catch hell for it tomorrow, but there were more important things—and went over to the fiddler’s shithole to make sure that Justin was all right.

Justin opened the door when he knocked, and he could see that Justin was packing up some stuff, because the whole place was littered with boxes and empty hangers and piles of crap.

“Brian,” Justin said.

“Do you need any help?” Brian offered, gesturing towards the messy apartment.

Justin glanced at the mess. “No, I’m good,” he said.

Brian shrugged, and turned to go, because he was suddenly having difficulty remembering why he came. Then he turned back. “Justin—”

Justin raised an eyebrow.

“Let me know if you do need any help,” he offered. “Or...money or anything.”

“Thanks,” Justin said, his voice flat, “but I don’t need anything from you.”

Brian flinched when the door slammed.

* * *

If Brian’d had trouble competing with Mr. Perfect Romantic Asshole before he was martyred, it was twice as difficult to compete with his untarnished memory now. Not that Brian admitted to himself that this was in any way a competition.

He found Justin drinking at Woody’s one night, and he went up and captured the stool next to him. “Buy you another?” he offered, taking in Justin’s black turtleneck and deciding that black was definitely not the blond’s color.

Justin shrugged apathetically, so Brian took that as a yes, and caught the bartender’s eye to place his order. The guy brought their drinks over, and Brian noticed that Justin was still wearing the fiddler’s ring on his finger

He scrunched his eyebrows together, gulped his drink, and turned to Justin. “Something to help you forget,” he said, tapping Justin’s glass, “and something to help you remember,” he said, fingering Justin’s ring.

Justin withdrew his hand from Brian’s. “I’m trying to decide what I must have done in a past life to deserve this kind of karma,” Justin said. “It must have been really fucking horrible, whatever it was.” Brian didn’t say anything, and Justin continued. “I mean—the instant I start to feel happy, then wham, something horrible happens.”

Brian nodded, and ordered them both another drink. Justin continued talking. “I mean, Ethan and I were really happy together,” Justin said earnestly.

“Who are you trying to convince?” Brian asked. “Me or you?”

“Ethan was just…everything I’d ever wanted in a boyfriend,” Justin said, staring at the bottom of his now-empty glass. “He was perfect.”

Brian thought of the fiddler’s liplock with the trumpet player. He remembered why he never wanted to play an instrument back in fourth grade when his mother wanted him to join the band. “Yeah,” Brian said, getting up from his stool and signally the bartender that he wanted to even up his tab. “Maybe he wasn’t as perfect as you think.” But he didn’t say anything more, because Justin deserved that much, at least.

* * *

Brian did get Justin back, eventually. First, he got him back in the backroom, because Justin was looking for a way to forget, and Brian knew how to give it to him better than anyone else. Later, he got him back in the loft, as well, the tattered boxes of stuff slowly finding their way back into Brian’s closet and drawers. It seemed to Brian as though it was convenient for Justin to just kind of pretend that three months of his life never existed.

But Justin was still wearing the ring.

* * *

Brian doesn’t do anniversaries, but six months after that fateful Friday, he stopped again at the little florist’s stand on his way home from work, and found himself actually buying the roses this time.

He went to the fiddler’s grave, and he hadn’t made any plans to meet Justin there or anything, but Justin was there just like he had known he would be. The air was bitterly cold, but there was still no rain.

Brian handed the flowers to Justin, who took them absently. After a moment, Justin removed them from the plastic wrapper and laid them on the frozen ground, the red and green a contrast to the dead brown grass.

A gust of wind ruffled the rose petals and mussed Justin’s hair, and Brian fought a sudden urge to rip the roses to shreds with his bare hands.

* * *

Maybe flowers are the gateway drug, because a month later, Brian found himself staring at the rings in a jewler’s case, vaguely wondering if getting Justin a new ring would make him take off the old.

There are a million moments when he’s almost told Justin. When he had been drunk, and angry, and Justin had been playing that screeching CD and with tears flowing down his face, and Brian had just wanted to spit out that the fucking fiddler wasn’t quite as perfect as Justin thinks, and not all of those “private lessons” he gave were on the violin.

But in the end, he didn’t say anything. And he didn’t buy the ring, either.

THE END


End file.
